Why Food Isn't an Addiction

One of the reasons I love writing about children and food is the frequency with which it arises as a conversation topic between parents. Just this past weekend I had a conversation with a fellow parent that made me ponder the kind of food wisdom from which all parents can benefit.

We were chatting over dinner prep about kids' food preferences. My friend--a mother who is smart and thoughtful in the choices she makes for her children--was wondering why children always seem to choose the food that's bad for them over one that is "healthy" (a highly subjective term, despite protests to the contrary). We try so hard to educate our children, from the earliest opportunity, about which foods are best for them. Carrots, apples, yogurt--good. Candy, potato chips, fast food--bad. From the first mush we spoon into our babies' mouths, well-meaning parents these days obsess over making the best, most-informed choices for their child's health. So why is it that these self-same children, thoroughly inundated with positive messages about "healthy" foods, will reliably reach for the Oreo before the carrot stick? How can they not know better, after all the messages we've been teaching and modeling for them since birth?

The answer is both simple and complex. People have a clear, primal preference for the kinds of foods that we know are terrible for us in excess: sugar, fat, and salt. No one can agree exactly why this preference exists, but one very plausible explanation is that, like all animals, people evolved to survive, and one essential to survival is food. One doesn't have to go back far to find a time when fat, sugar and salt were all in much more limited supply than in our current world. We all grew up marveling over the strange fact that salt was once worth more than gold, or that white sugar was once the privilege of kings and emperors alone--but the amount of time that's passed since those facts were true is a mere blink of the eye in humankind's existence. Fat and sugar are energy sources, and isn't it possible that our physical and mental cravings for them aren't a failure of will-power, as current dietary vogue would suggest, but actual survival mechanisms? It seems highly possible that human evolution hasn't yet caught up to our (very) recent abilities to produce a once unthinkably prodigious supply of these substances.

Other than how much it makes sense, the reason I like this theory is how it can inform your choices, both for yourself and for your children. First, it supports the concept of moderation rather than elimination. Short of returning to a caveman diet--an idea that would seem ludicrous if it hadn't already been in fashion--the most sensible choice is to view these "unhealthy" substances as what they are: essential parts of the human diet, in reasonable quantities. Eliminating all fat from one's diet--as many tried to do in the1990s (remember "Healthy Choice" cookies, fat-free and loaded with sugar to compensate?)--or all sugar, or even all salt merely leads us down dangerous paths. Anyone who's ever given up any of these substances can testify, more often than not, that the cravings intensify rather than disappear. And anyone trying to keep these things from children is also fighting a losing battle: either they will find goodies somewhere else, or they will indulge in them when they're no longer under your thumb. It's a much smoother path for parents to limit sweets and treats rather than ban them, and furthermore, it's a rule we've been following for as long as we can remember: dinner before dessert. It's still a battle of wills, but one based in reality, and thus a reasonable place for parents to put their foot down (something I generally believe children benefit from!).

Second, seeing "unhealthy" foods as something we are built to need but oversupplied with in the modern world also absolves children from seeming willful or naughty when they reach for the Oreo before the apricot. They hear and may even comprehend our lessons about better food choices, but ancient preferences are still going to steer them quite powerfully in the other direction. Your children's incessant clamoring for junk food doesn't make them brats; it makes them human. Despite a growing understanding of the negative effects of all these foods on the health of both children and adults, we can't conquer our true natures. But we have primal drives that lead us towards other bad behaviors--lying, theft, murder, to name a few--and one of the central goals of civilization is to manage those drives. Parents, as the civilizing force that rules the home, need to manage their children's food intake in a way that takes primal urges into account while refusing to allow them to take over. No marshmallow fluff sandwiches for dinner, please, and let's get some fruits and vegetables into that child before he has a scoop of ice-cream.

Finally, understanding that we need quantities of fat, salt and sugar lets self-flagellating parents off the hook a bit. You aren't a failure if your child eats a cookie. You aren't a rotten parent if your well-meaning lectures on healthy choices seem to be falling on deaf ears. These substances aren't dangerous drugs, despite what the current fashion for referring to them as "addictions" would suggest. After all, we don't need nicotine, alcohol or THC to survive, but we do need food.

There's no miraculous way to ensure your child will grow up being a perfectly balanced eater, just as there's no way to guarantee he or she will be a good person: the important thing is to try to the best of your abilities, and to accept that there are always going to be forces beyond our understanding and our control. The diet industry has a major stake in making us believe that given the right tools we can hone our will power and conquer our innermost selves, but we can't. We aren't purely rational beings, and we can't treat food education like memorizing multiplication tables or overcoming an addiction: it's just not that simple.

What I cooked this week:

Easy Stovetop Macaroni with Peas, Bacon and Cheese à la Jamie Oliver (Melissa Clark's In the Kitchen with a Good Appetite): this is my children's favorite dinner at the moment; I leave out the lemon juice

I think you shoot down your own theory towards the end of the article when you talk about primal urges. All human beings have a pleasure-seeking urge; our desire to feel good drives us in one of 2 directions (I think): Easy or Earned. I can derive pleasure from enjoying whole food that I grew myself, or I can learn to derive pleasure from a McDonald's drive-thru meal. I can derive deep comfort and satisfaction in building a meaningful relationship with a monogamous and loving partner over the course of my life or I can settle for brief, lustful encounters with a variety of partners. I can buy a knock-off or save for the 'real thing'.
Our nutritional needs as a species have always been met by the foods in our environment. We once ate only what was seasonally available. Our bodies have always known how to process and use natural fats and sugars. Man-made fats and sugars are killing us (and modern medicine is keeping us alive, but our quality of life has diminished in some respects)Aquiring food once required effort and planning (hunting and gathering)...now we might hunt for the nearest KFC?
Our addiction is only with man-made foods which could essentially (and may soon be) be classified as 'drugs'...substances that are controlled by the FDA (Food Drug)...studies have suggested that our brain can't tell the difference between white (bleached/processed) sugar and cocaine; both make our bodies cry out for more and more. The natural sugar in a peice of fruit does not have the same effect. When you combine white carbs and sugar (as in most cereals)you flip the addiction switch (if you're predisposed and have no other way to release stress) and you eat and eat and eat because it feels and tastes so good...and after, just as with excessive drinking or drug use, you feel sick.
In the documentary Super-Size me Morgan Spurlock demonstrates the effect of a super sized meal on a 'healthy' body; normally used to eating a whole foods diet, he begins to sweat halfway through the meal and eventually throws up, unable to finish the meal because his body recognized the man-made food as a toxin (or drug). How do we begin any addiction? A little at first (ooh, ahh, mmmm) and then we're hooked and need more and more to staify the craving developed by that drug (white sugar, carbs and man-made fats).
Food, actual whole food is NOT an addictive substance.
Man-made food 'products' commercially sold for profit that we absolutely do not need to survive, are drugs which we can and do become addicted to. The obesity epidemic is a direct result of man-made, legally consumable drugs...if you ask me. :)
Also consider the link between food marketing/language and sex (as in the tantilizing, forbidden, tempting kind). (We need to procreate to survive as a species, but man invented porn which people become addicted to.)I've never seen a 'sexy' or provacative commercial for kale. But I have seen very suggestive commercials for country fried chicken 'salad' drizzled in blue cheese dressing and smothered in candied pecans and oohh, ahhh, bursting with juicy...ummm carnuba wax? Porn? Food commercial? Floor wax ingredient on my nuts? What?
When we choose to eat/crave man-made foods it is because we are seeking to satisfy an emotional need that marketing has promised us this food-product provides. In the cafeteria at the hospital where I work, right at the check-out is a a huge chip stand. At the top of the chip stand are three happy looking women who are laughing on a sunny day, eating chip together. Above their heads becons the suggestion to "Grab some Fun!" indicating that inside these little bags of chips I will find Fun! in the middle of my stressful workday at the hospital...that somehow by eating chips I will be transported to a lively social event full of laughter and human connection. The reality is that all I find is 2-300 calories of saturated fat, grease, synthetic dyes, and various chemicals which, if I consume daily in an effort to 'grab some fun!' will land me in the hospital as a patient. hahahaha
So, the short version is that you're right, food is not addicting; whole food in its natural state. Man-made food-products are basically packaged, legal crack on a shelf.
(so, P.S the easy and earned bit...addicts have yet to learn how to meet real needs in healthy or acceptable ways so they repeatedly turn to their substance of choice to self-soothe or gain pleasure. Except in rare cases of OCD, whole food is not a culprit, but man-made food-products are one of the many drugs of choice AND we're all still in enough denial to defend our food addiction as socially accpetable and NOT a problem.)

Elizabeth--thank you for this really thoughtful comment; I absolutely agree with you on every point you make about how we are manipulated by the food industry, as well as how overdosing on fats/sugar/salt-laden foods can have toxic effects on the body. There's no doubt some people do become "addicted" to junk foods. I think my piece is aimed less at adults making their own food choices and more at parents who see their children's natural preferences as baffling or "bad." The truth is that there are parents who exercise no control over their children's food choices, or feed them a very unhealthy diet of processed and fast foods, which is obviously wrong and terrible for these children's health. But there are also anxious parents on the other end of the spectrum who freak their children out about food, which can have an equally detrimental effect on their kids' eating. These parents absorb messages about obesity and food-related health issues and pass that onto their children in the form of disordered eating. That we are struggling with these two issues at once in this country certainly illustrates what a muddle we've created out of our culture of abundance.

Thank you for responding to my crazy talk...food is an obsessive passion of mine.
And likewise, I agree with what you've said...it is so difficult for parents to teach their children about food when we are having such a difficult time creating a healthy relationship with food, as adults...one extreme to the other for sure...and how to find balance. Not an easy task for moms and dads, or the rest of us.
I'm so glad I'm perfect (hahahahaha)
And one more thought: it's really not about the food, it's about what role the food plays in our lives or our relationships or family dynamics. Food is a vehicle of expression for so many subtexts (or is that just my warped perception because of my relationship with food?)
Either way, I love reading your blogs :)